Spike, The Gamer
by beirirangu
Summary: What would you do if your world suddenly turned into a game? If you could level up? Raise your stats? You'd set off on an adventure, of course!


It was another normal afternoon in the castle, with Twilight practicing spells in her laboratory and Spike being bored out of his mind in his room, desperately waiting for the doorbell. He's already finished his chores, making sure everything was as clean and organized as the obsessive Twilight would allow, which was easiest when she was out of his way, he's already finished every last one of his comic books, making sure to be extra careful of the rarer ones in his collection, as well as any adventure novels that have tickled his fancy, he's already thought about talking Big Mac into another game of Ogres & Oubliettes, but that'd be just like all the other times he's asked and was told things like "I don't have time, it's harvesting season," and "Shhh! Not while my sisters are here!" He's even already looked across every daytime television station there is! He was absolutely bored and tired of waiting! He couldn't even use the anxiousness to pass by the boredom anymore! He was going completely out of his mind with boredom! That was until the doorbell finally rang, startling him into jumping almost a foot off the ground, followed by his excited rush to the door.

This was it! This was his escape from boredom! This was the day that his life would change forever! He opened the door and was instantly greeted by the mailmare, holding a package just for him; exactly who he wanted to see!

"Morning, Spike!"

"Morning, Derpy! Is that for me?!" He asked, practically jumping where he stood

"Yep, it sure is... it finally came! So you can stop asking me about it, now," she replied, ending with a deadpan response, tired of the questions she's been getting about it every single day.

"Heh... sorry about that," Spike began. "I was just so excited..."

"Yeah, I get it," she said, interrupting him. "Everyone gets a little anxious when they know they've got a package coming, but I've got more than just one to deliver, you know. Signature?"

"Oh, yeah, I get it," Spike replied, kinda surprised by the forcefulness of her clipboard, but after giving it his signature, he quickly grabbed the box and rushed to the door. "Thank you so much! Bye, Derpy!"

"Bye, Spike!" She said with a shake of her head, not really surprised in the slightest.

After the pleasantries and signatures were over, Spike slammed the door and rushed to the TV to open his treasure, instantly gawking at the sight before him. It was "The Station", the latest gaming console! And with it, the hit game, "Toaru Ossan"! Even though it was a relatively new market, it still amazed him what technologies they were producing for the many arcades around Equestria; making all sorts of games, adventures, characters, and even worlds for so many ponies to explore and enjoy, and now they made some you can play at home!

He was so excited to start playing, in fact, that he didn't notice the relatively loud, frustrated groan that came from the basement door, which held the frustrated Twilight, desperately trying to work out a spell from her her most recently assigned spellbook.

"I've been working on this spell for hours, now! What am I doing wrong?" She exclaimed, going back to the book it came from, yet again. "It's a simple spell, but why isn't it working? Is it the incantation I'm using? No, I'm doing it word for word. Is it the target I'm using it on? No, it's the same as the one in the book! Is it the amount of magic I'm using? I doubt even he could use as much magic as I can, but I'm just about out of options," she sighed, setting up her target yet again: a little grape, sat upon the floor, resting in the middle of the nearly empty room, waiting for yet another blast of magical energy to be sent its way. "Whether the spell works or not, I'm gonna smell like grapes when I'm through!" Indeed, that's all this spell was meant to do: act as a kind of perfume that make the caster smell just like the target, keyword: meant to.

And so, with a frustrated sigh, along with the frustration and the drive to make it happen, she charges up her horn far beyond that of any normal unicorn, and blasts the grape with one of her most powerful spells to date. Only, it didn't just fail to work, it burnt the grape to non-existence and ricocheted around, bouncing off every single object it came into contact with, burning them beyond repair, and then bursting through the door of her lab, sending it violently rocketing throughout the castle she and Spike called home.

Needless to say, it did plenty of damage to the castle, so much, in fact, that Spike was violently pulled out from his game as the spell destroyed many things from each and every room. But before he could do anything more than pause the game, the blast entered his room and burnt straight through the painting hanging next to the TV, and before Spike could react, it came his way.

He had no time to react; he had no time to dodge or defend, he could only watch in slow motion as the powerful blast of magic headed straight for his newest, and most prised possession: his gaming console.

The brief memories of his time with it flashed before his eyes as it struck, not just bounce off of it like all the others, it struck home, causing a devastating blast to everything around it, from the television, the carpet, and the chairs, to Spike, himself.

He had no idea how long he was on the floor, and he could only vaguely remember why, but there was one thing he knew for certain: somehow, this was all Twilight's fault. With that being said, he slowly got back the strength to pick himself up and quickly survey his surroundings. It was a disaster, plain and simple, where his once beloved possession stood was nothing but a crater, surrounded by many charred pieces of furniture, along with the picture frame with nothing but ash and a scorch mark inside. Looking past the picture frame, peering through the doorway the spell came from, he saw yet another scorch mark on the ceiling, and following the many such marking throughout his home, he finally found their source: a panicking Twilight, frantically spraying the walls with a fire extinguisher.

"S-Spike! What happened to you?!" Twilight frantically exclaimed, putting down the fire extinguisher and getting close enough to examine her scorched companion.

"Twilight..." he spoke through his teeth, trying not to get angry. "You... I mean your spell... What the hay were you thinking?!"

"I-I'm so sorry, Spike. I didn't... I never meant..."

"Look at all the damage you've done!" He yelled, pointing out all the visible markings around them. "You've practically set the whole house on fire! You even destroyed my gaming console!"

"Y-you don't have a gaming console!"

"I _used_ to," he corrected her, still furious. "I literally **JUST** got it today! Why the heck were you even firing off such dangerous spell for, anyway?!"

"I-It wasn't dangerous... I-I just used a lot of magic..." she sheepishly responded

"Oh? And why did you do that?" He spat.

"B-B-Because I couldn't... I couldn't..." she tried to say, too embarrassed to actually say it, and too ashamed to admit that she caused all of this.

"Couldn't what? Get the spell to work? Really? And what's this spell supposed to do? Blow up electronics?"

"N-no, it's supposed to make ponies smell better."

"Really? Something as simple as that? Why the heck are you even trying out a spell like that, anyway?"

"I-it's one of the spells in the book Celestia sent me to look into," she answered, slightly cowering from his rage.

But upon looking at her shivers of terror, as well as actually listening to her words, he took a pause and a deep breath, and after having finally calmed down from his rage, he sighed, "alright, where is this book? Was it destroyed as well?

"No, it's still in the lab, the spell never touched it," she replied, the fear and regret slowly leaving her more and more as she lead Spike to the lab.

He took another sigh, his rage was still there, but it was under control, and as he was lead into the most damaged part of the castle, as well as the book that caused it, he couldn't help but take another deep breath, "is this it?"

"Yep, that's the spell, right there, on the recto page," she responded, pointing to the etchings on the right-hand side.

He looked over the only spell on the page, as well as the only spell on the left page, and saw how simple they both were to cast, he then flipped the book over to the next page and nearly facepalmed at what he read. "Twilight. Did you read this?"

"Read what? The next spell?" She asked, coming closer to see what Spike saw. "I haven't even finished this one yet."

"No, these are the details of the spell," he replied. "It says how they used it, what they tried it on, and what it did."

Twilight was flabbergasted, flabbergasted and embarrassed. "R-Really? What does it say?"

"Well, it starts off by saying what you already know; that it transfers smells to ponies, but it also says that it theoretically could transfer any trait to somepony, but it never worked on anything other than smell, and that it only works on creatures less than two metres from the target," and with that, he slowly turned to her. "So how far away were you?"

"Um..." she sheepishly started. "I was the, um, standard testing distance away..."

"And how far is that?" He asked

"F-Five metres," she answered, having now felt the full frontal emotional assault of her amateurish mistake. "Oh my Celestia... I wasted hours on that?!"

"Yep... it seems like you did," he almost laughed. "And now we've got burn marks all over the castle, and a destroyed gaming console because of it."

"Oh, that's right! I'm so sorry, Spike!" She remembered, genuinely feeling sorry for his loss, "is there something I can do to make up for it?"

"Well, I would ask you to buy me another one, but it's kinda expensive..." he stated, only now remembering what he did to buy it. "So expensive that I kinda borrowed half of it from the... um... treasury."

"Oh Spike," she said with disappointment dripping from her words. "You know you're not supposed to do that."

"I know! I know!" He began, trying desperately to amend himself, "I was just so desperate! And I'm still gonna pay it back!"

"Yes, I know you were," she stopped him. "I know you've always been a responsible drake, and I'll tell you what, if you forgive me for destroying your game, I'll take care of that for you."

"R-Really?" He asked, so surprised and elated by her mercy that he hugged her. "Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome, my little drake," she responded as she hugged him back, enjoying the embrace for as long as it lasted. "Now I think it's about time we get started cleaning this up."

"Alright," he sighed contently, not wanting to clean up her mess. "I'll go and take a bath first, and then I'll tackle the living room."

"Ok, and while you're doing that, I'll start off here," she replied, already beginning to move stuff around with her magic.

And so, the rest of the day was set, with the two spending most of their time trying to get the black soot off the walls as best they could, only stopping to fix and eat dinner, before finally falling into bed, both emotionally and physically exhausted.


End file.
